Realization of Inherent Innocence

We are spiritual beings expressing as humans and this spiritual dimension present in human form is referred as Jeev(Being) in scriptures and voices of Sages, until it realizes its true identity. We are essentially spiritual beings, indivisible and inseparable part of Totality, also referred as Existence, Divine and many other names. We inherit essential qualities of Divine such as innocence, which is the subject of contemplation here. This innocence is packaged in our core being and not the outcome of any spiritual practices, Karma or any other human endeavors. This is available to us easily, naturally and only thing that we need to do is to accept it with full conviction and do not shake off this belief when challenged with temporary turbulences in our inner space.

Great Sage Tulsidas in Ramcharit Manas also pointed to this relationship of human being with the Divine.

Iswar Ans Jeev Abinasee | Chetan Amal Sahaj Sukhrasi || (7 | 117 | 1)

He says that all beings are inseparable extensions of the Unperishable Existence and 4 inherited qualities that he mentions here about Jeev(the dweller within) are

Chetan – One who comprises of the element of knowingness, is subtly fine and survives all changes.

Amal – Pure and ever-cleansed

Sahaj – Natural and spontaneous

Sukhrashi – Abode of happiness

Generally we find human beings struggling to eliminate wrongs, evils, fake and false behaviors and developing blocking beliefs that until we are done away with all kinds of impurities in us, we won’t be able to attain Godliness or fullness in life. Here our mental conditioning and worldly influences may lead us to wrongly presume that approach to attain success in spirituality is same as that what we do for earning money and fulfilling other desires.But this is a myth and such unexamined assumptions are one of the primary reasons for struggles and hopelessness on spiritual path. World is ever changing, so all it’s things and so one has to constantly endeavor to maintain it in desired positions and stances but case in the spiritual dimension is just the opposite. Here divinity is non-changing, already available to every human but on the contrary we are running on the periphery, distracted, disillusioned and not being available to ever present center in us. Main appeal here is that the Centre is already ever pure by nature and we have to accept our innate innocence and stay undisturbed from any unwanted guests of anger, frustrations etc. and do not engage in any action driven from temporary negative drivers, which are destined to die for sure.

Primary care that we have to take is that based on whatever negativity we see in our mental space we don’t have to tie that to our essential identity and wrongly believe ourselves as culprits. Such unexamined beliefs about self must be released forever and way to release is don’t take them as true based on temporary existence in our inner space. If we hold on to any wrong beliefs about Self then we start the journey on wrong foot and misdirect our efforts – we keep struggling to eliminate the impurities and from the back door we are strengthening it by hosting the negative beliefs in our core “I am not pure, I am angry person, I am a lazy person etc. etc.” This association of fault to our “I” nourishes the faulty behaviors even more strongly. Secondly our misdirectedefforts to fight against virtual reality make it more important and real to us, the more we fight the more it becomes live and problematic, and we get farther in our beliefs from our natural innocence and restful center. Overall result is suffering in the name of spiritual practices and we may become hopeless and may consider ourselves undeserving of divinity, something which is naturally available to us – now and forever.

Every being, who is trying to advance on the spiritual path experiences for sure some improvement in their responses to challenges, reactions, succumbing to faults and evils, it doesn’t bother that much nor it stays for that long as it used to be earlier. This positive change in intensity of issues and reduced frequency of recurrence should encourage the seeker and denote that actually these issues are separate from the ever present being, our real and essential nature. Fundamentally, whatever is observed is separate from the observing entity, i.e. the Self.

So the golden summary – faults and evils don’t exist in our being; those are separate, come and go like unwanted guests and exists temporarily. Lust, anger, greed, attachment, arrogance, jealousy and likes are existentially unreal and have taken root because of our false identification with virtual reality as “me” and “mine”. In identified state we lose capability of right perception just as we forget day-to-day life in dreams. Consequently we end up messing our identity around struggles, self-created issues and take this burden as substantial and profound, to be dealt with utmost seriousness. But actually these are non-existential and knowing such fascinating truth about evils is real freedom. Sadly, any effort made to eliminate non-existential issues is foolish attempt and required thing is to perceive it as false and temporary – this is long term dissolution of evils and any such disturbing elements.

Let’s go little deeper into observed and observing entity for bringing clarity on our essential nature. Observing entity, self, is there always irrespective of whether there is dirt in our mental space or some attractive waves travelling in and out of our space. The being always remain as it is, unaffected, unchanged and that is one of our core experiences of remaining unchanged amidst all changes, though unnoticed and unanalyzed. Another thing to note is the fact that we are able to experience the evils and wrongs and this experiencing proves our separateness from dirt, as dirt can only be perceived on the base of innocence. As black color text is clearly visible on white background. So, it means we are actually ever innocent because of our capability of being able to objectively see faults. When we are identified and living under the influence of evils then we can’t see any issues in us.

Second important thing to note is that no matter how strong is the intensity of reaction, it pollutes max to max our mental space and not beyond that. Because as Beings everything gets captured into our observation window – all traffic of thoughts, the chaos caused and the degree to which our mind was affected. Observer exists independent of observed and act of observation but vice-versa is not true. By virtue of observation it gets the individualistic name “Observer” or else it is simply non-local observing presence. We, by mistake, believe ourselves as “affected party” by virtue of false identification with mind but actually it is the only mind, body or intellect which any evil has access to. It cannot affect real you, the observing presence – the unchanging reality. It is a great step towards freedom if we gather courage and see it clearly that we are not mind-intellect-body and nor the evils, issues, false which come and go in mental space. We dis-identify from both the house (body-mind-intellect) and it’s guests (evils or virtues) and enroot our sense of self in absolute reality, our permanent abode.

Substance that is absent in beginning and in the end but only appears in certain circumstances in the middle of any process, cannot be considered real, just like our image in mirror. Idea is we don’t have to be deluded by only in-between dramas of mind and remain unshaken in the idea of our real nature as innately innocent. Just discard it as non-existential and don’t act upon it too – this is devaluing it from all sides – we don’t have to do anything driven under its influence nor do we do something to push it away. Both are mistaken tendencies, we need to get over.

Similarly all other beings are also essentially and innately innocent being indivisible part of commonly shared Existence by all of us. Developing non-judgmental attitude towards others and self is one of the deepest and effective spiritual disciplines based in truth. This should be practiced even if we find people at faults and doing something under the influence of unwanted guests in them, we should continue to have trust and healthy perception in the host (them) as essentially pure beings. Our strong belief will help them and they will not feel judged and discouraged. Generally we slip to find faults in others easily and believe them as essentially culprits having mal-intentions, and as a result our power of such negative notions contributes in their suffering and succumbing to negative intruders. Psychologically whatever we see and spend time reflecting, that thing or matter gets invited in our mental space, so if we see faults and believe others as faulty people, we invite those evils in us, unknowingly. Summary is judgement helps none and it takes no money or effort to develop non-judgmental attitude for all. It is one of the greatest services to whole world. Practically, whenever we need to guide our younger selves we should take their faults as guests and assuming them as essentially pure and innocent and give them tricks and safeguards to avoid undesirable tendencies.

Next important thing to reflect is what we should do at times when we are seeing right in front of us the turbulence in mental world and how one can effectively avoid that.

“Tayaur Na Vasham Agachhet” (Geeta 3 |34) suggests that we should not come under its influence and not let it drive us mindlessly into tasks and reactions.

Let’s detail it a little more –

We should not do anything in hurry under negative influence and always create some space to consult higher brain before acting out.

If we let the evil drive us then it stays longer in our space and appears more real and strong.

If we are able to remain in control and do use our discerning power then it encourages us, maintains coolness, gives us sense of inherent freedom from evil influences in and around.

As iterated above, we should not identify with faults or evils as “our” faults, as our being is separate, ever unchanged, innately innocent and always pure.

We should have attitude of gratitude for Ultimate and trust that the grace of divine is always with us to protect us from negativity. This helps us stay away from overdose of vitamin “I” too.

After having contemplated on our real nature and common mistakes, let us reflect on what are the core error structures supporting almost evert weakness. Root of all human evils is misuse of our rights and local independence. And this discretion is not absolute; it is for some brief human life period. We can engage in multi levels of misuse – at belief level, thought level, and in actions and speech. Sages and scriptures says that since we started misusing our local freedom and rights then onwards Karma got applied and we have been suffering endlessly through multiple cycles of birth and death. This human life is result of HIS grace and a rarest opportunity to stop misuse and find exit from vicious loop of sufferings. If we remain rock firm in our decision to not misuse any of our dispensed powers then preserving innocence becomes an easy affair.

If we continue to misuse our local freedom then there is no end to suffering and deepening self-destructive patterns for future. Because in the process of misuse, we develop attachments and tendencies for seeking happiness from outside, where it can never be found. We develop deeper attachments and misconceptions, root cause of all sufferings and evils.

Interest and addictive tendencies for finding pleasure in momentary experiences, hoarding money mindlessly for arrogance or buying costly experiences, is the source of wide variety of evils and havoc in human life, which was actually designed to attain divinity. If one gets little curious and observe these tendencies of seeking pleasure from outside, then one can see that any such experiences start with inner lack and end with unhappiness and depleted energy levels. So such pleasures are padded with miseries in start and end, hence seeing these in total perspective (waiting-wanting, little-pleasure in between, miserable again) also matures us with understanding on real nature of pleasures and misdirected tendencies. Upon valuing such understanding and learning from life experience, one no longer finds it sensible to be driven from pleasures and this realization naturally leads to finding the innate innocence of our core being.

Another concept to digest is that innocence is not something which can be acquired through hard work, practice or any particular action or skill. If we mistakenly believe so then we are creating false sense of ownership or doer-ship, which is yet another source point of breeding and nourishing complications, useless burdens, and contradictory pursuits. We all are well aware of arrogance and its side effects in creating unnecessary troubles in our day-to-day lives. While on the other hand innocence is self-evident, innate, and naturally ever available to us. We don’t have to earn it but endeavor to protect it. Protecting it means –

Know with the help of discerning power that we are essentially and inherently innocent by virtue of being inseparable part of ultimate Existence.

Don’t accept any faults or evils in your core being, nor attach these to our sense of self.

In the end, let’s conclude with two step-in-aids which devotees and seekers can use to their advantage during day to day challenges and difficulties.

First solution is particularly for believers who can take refuge and remember HIM with earnest heart – O’ My Lord!! I am yours ..help me from evil effects ..etc. Divine help is ever available to devotees. “Yog-kshem vahamyahm” (Gita 9 | 22) – Lord Krishna promises to protect surrendered dear ones, such that their sense of self in innate innocence is preserved and any negative guests are removed. Devotees need not worry after such a compassionate promise from the Lord himself. Our job is to lay unshaken trust in HIM and HIS grace, rest will be taken care. HIS grace has enabled devotees up to the realization of innate innocence and same will protect it whenever needed. Dependability on HIS grace is also one of the key strengths of devotee and this gradually undoes the past negative influences in mind-body-intellect as well.

Second fundamental device is to accept deeply and firmly the innate innocence as inseparable part of our core. The ever present is-ness is our real nature and identification with body-mind-intellect is false and based in ignorance. This is-ness is already devoid of any evils, faults or weaknesses. Our deepest and purest sense of self should be rooted in this essence and not in transitory experiences or influences. After deeply accepting this truth, one need not do anything further and just let go all efforts, struggles and become silent inside-out. This naturally attained silence invokes inner power and enables clear experience/recognition of our real Self (innately innocent), and aligns us to truth. Upon having such a fundamental recognition, there is no further additional practice needed to uphold the experience, rather, it remains as is now and forever. As it is not mind made or a practice-product but an ever-existing reality, just to be recognized.

Just a note of caution that this should not be taken as free-pass for indulging more in pleasures or harming others and considering self as innocent. These are deep insights of knowledge for people having intention to heal their hearts and go beyond limitations, and not at all to find loopholes to enjoy more and increase complications in life.<.meta>

4 Replies to “Realization of Inherent Innocence”

Hi Prakash, very thought provoking article. We are most innocent when we are born but as we grow, our life experiences, prejudices, surroundings, etc. form layers and layers on our inner innocent being. Eventually we lose touch with the true inner self.

Thanks Prasad, reflect and reject any compromising belief about self based on any dirt gathered so far. We are ever innocent that is what the key message Swamiji wants to instill in beings. This belief is based in truth and takes care of all these false layers easily.

Just knowing, that our real essence is always innocent and pure….is so endearing !! And so is the fact, that deep acceptance of this inherent innocence and trust in the Lord’s grace can dissolve all the transient flaws/evils we are influenced by and struggle with. Very encouraging post and such a fundamental to achieve freedom from the burden of wrongs we see in self and others. Cheers !!